Spiel 1

Game number 1 is under the belt and we did a pretty good job taking care of our opponent; the Magdeburg Virgin Guards. The final score of the game was 48-7 for the Monchengladbach Mavericks. We play them later this year so they will want some revenge.

We played a good game overall; the defense caused lots of turnovers and the offense took care of the ball and scored lots of points so that is always good.

Unfortunately we had a lot penalties some holding, some pass interference, block in the back and so on; the penalties happened on all sides of the ball; offense, defense and special teams. The game is refereed a little differently here and much more to the specifics of the rulebook. The referees seem to call the game to the "T" of the rules and not allow some physical discrepancies. Personally for me and some of the other players (German and Imports alike) needed to adjust to the reffing style, it was quite confusing because I have been taught and played a certain way for so long but we overcame the problems and will adjust for further games.

I personally had an OK game; I scored one touchdown but had a bad drop that I should have caught. The dropped pass could have turned into a long gain or maybe a touchdown as well as having converted the third down into a first down. I turned to run up field early and took my eyes off the ball as it was coming into my hands and dropped it; rookie mistake but I took care of it later and scored a long touchdown.

Overall can't complain we won and won big; our running back had a great game, I think he had four touchdowns. As we like to say; "He tore the field up!" Most of our opponents were at the game to watch since this was our first regular season game and I think we sent a message.

Here are a few pictures of me from the game; some are on kick/punt return or on offense as well as a picture of a team celebration for the fans at the end of the game. They were taken by one of the photographers that is at all our team events attached is a link to one of his websites.

End of Training Camp

As previously mentioned, the last day of training camp started off a little later since we had our team barbecue the night before. We slept in and then had to pack everything up to clear out from the hostel and head to the Hockeypark for our team scrimmage.

The scrimmage was a “controlled” offense versus defense scrimmage (a game simulation); what that means is that there were no referees but the coaches controlled the scrimmage by whistles and also had the opportunity to talk to the players in between plays to correct things if necessary. The practice consisted of a warm-up, and an individual period (when the team divides by position with their positional coach to go over specific positional drills) then the team proceeded to play 48 plays.

The scrimmage was broken into four quarters and each “quarter” was at different locations on the field, using down and distance at each location just no punting or special teams. The offense would start 12 plays on their own 20-yard line; the second group of twelve plays was on the offense’s own 45-yard line, the third on the defense’s own 45-yard line and the fourth grouping would be on the defense’s 20-yard line and I think we may have done a few on the actual goal line as well.

Training camps are an all-consuming ordeal; from sunrise to sunset; it is football all the time and no time for you to take a moment and breathe. It is a very exhausting undertaking, not only for the players but also for all involved; from the coaches, to the support staff (equipment, video, food), the physiotherapy and doctors staff and so on. Once the practice was completed; I was excited to grab my things and head back to the apartment and get a chance to relax.

I want to reflect a little bit about the concept of training camp.

Training camps are a part of football; but most players have mixed feelings about them. We all know and understand how crucial it is to develop chemistry between players and prepare and evaluate players for the new season but there are always some downsides as well.

Personally, I don’t mind training camp; playing on offense it is very important to develop chemistry with your quarterback to understand how he thinks and reacts in certain situations. It is very important to be on the same page and the best way to do that is repetition and believe me there is a lot during training camp.

Some people could counter that point of view by saying that would only be the case if you were playing with many new players. They would say that if you have played with the same quarterback for many years that wouldn’t be as necessary since you already know each other’s tendencies.

I use the example of quarterback and offense because it is the most common one for me but I believe the same tendencies and concepts apply for defense as well.

When I think of training camp the only concern that I always have is the fear of injury.

You may ask why am I only concerned about injury during training camp and am not as worried about it otherwise. I am not as concerned about injury at other times during the season because I play football and when you play a contact sport, injuries will occur.

In training camp however, in my experience, is when you see the most players succumb to injury. It is a terrible thing to see a teammate get hurt by a teammate or just get hurt in a non-game situation. Training camp is a time period with such high intensity; injuries are almost unavoidable.

Every year that I have been in training camp there always seem to be a player get hurt and miss a significant amount of playing time and that is always a depressing thing to see. Football is played for about 4 or 5 months a year and the rest of the time is training; the preparation lasts for the rest of year. When you see a teammate get hurt; you feel for him; you know the long, tough hours he spent preparing to be ready for game day.

Another side affect that is also very common during training camp is the development of nagging injuries. These injuries aren’t bad enough to take you out of the game or practice but they are still there and a pain to deal with since you never feel like you can compete at your best potential. I know that more than once I have dealt with one of these injuries and they are no fun but a part of the game.

Many times these injuries develop or begin to appear during training camp because of the high number of practices (usually twice a day, for two hours or more) and the amount of running that takes place during camp. The toll that these hours of high intense practice place on your body often result in the development of tendonitis, shin splints or muscle strains that often will remain until the end of the season.

There are many more pros and cons involved with training camp that I could go into but I wanted to highlight a few and try to get your opinions. I have had the pros and cons discussion with coaches, players (veterans and rookies), therapists, and doctors, all in an effort to gauge a general consensus about training camp. What is your opinion? Should practices be shorter? Longer? Less intense? Less contact drills? Should there be more involvement with the therapy staff? How do you think it differs in other sports? Let me know what you think.

New Team Website

The Monchengladbach Mavericks launched there new website. Click here or in the sidebar to check it out.

No post today but here are the two pictures from the website. My head shot and the team picture.

Die Verschiedene typen des Fussball

At this point I will talk a little bit more about football in Canada, in the United States and in Germany/Europe. As some of you may already know football or as it is referred to here; “Amerikanishes Football” has two general set of rules; the Canadian version and the American version.

First a little history; football is a game that was born from variations of rugby and it can be dated back to the 19th century. There are several places where football was being played with a variety of rules but the first recorded match between two universities or organizations was on May 14th, 1874, between Harvard and McGill University. This game led to the spreading of organized football in the Ivy League and if you follow the yellow brick road you get to where you now have football played on five continents around the World.

Most of you reading this know of the two versions of “gridiron football” (that’s what they call it in Australia), being played in North America but below are some of the variations to understand the differences between the games.

The Canadian version of the game has:
- 12 players on the field
- 110-yard field
- 20-yard end zones
- 65-yard width of the field
- Field goal posts at the front of the end zone
- Players in backfield are allowed forward-motion to the line of scrimmage
- Three “downs” or attempts to advance the ball 10 yards
- A five-yard halo to protect the punt returner

The American version of the game has:
- 11 players on the field
- 100-yard field
- 10-yard end zones
- 54-yard width of the field
- Field goal posts at the back of the end zone
- Players are not allowed forward motion to the line of scrimmage
- Four “downs” to advance the ball 10 yards
- Fair catch rule to protect punt returner

Those are the big differences between the Canadian and the American versions of football. There are other differences in the rules but overall the game is quite similar. In Europe, they play the American version of the game and the leagues follow the same rules that are played in the NCAA the previous season (it takes about that long for them to translate the rule changes and put them into effect.)

My entire football experience leading up to coming to Germany was in the Canadian version of football; this is a little unusual because even in Canada several leagues still play with the American version of the game. I never had the opportunity to play that version before coming to Germany because my high school league and the Canadian Interuniversity Sport league both play the Canadian version. Therefore when I showed up here I needed to get used to the changes quickly; it wasn’t too difficult since I already knew the rules and just had to get used to the differences.

Another big change that I had to undergo when I got here was the switch from offense, which I had played regularly for the last 5 years, to playing defense. I had played receiver at McGill University but also had some background playing safety and the Mavericks had decided that they needed help with their defensive secondary since they were a little short-handed until the rest of the imports arrived.

After those first few weeks on defense (including training camp), I was allowed to switch back to offense where I was more comfortable. The change wasn’t quite as smooth as I expected, but since I had been playing in a specific offense for so long and was used to a certain way of calling plays, formations and positions it took me a few practices to get used to the new method. I think one of the other differences was since I didn’t get to participate on offense during training camp I had a larger package to learn all at once. Overall, it went fairly smoothly but it just took a little longer than I expected and I don’t doubt that the switch from the Canadian football to the American version of the game contributed to this delay a little bit.


We are now in the preparation phase for our first regular season game. On Sunday May 9th, at 3pm (Central European Time), we play against the Magdeburg Virgin Guards; they have already played a regular season game so they have those first game kinks out of the way but we will be ready and hopefully start the season off right with our first victory on our home field.

The next few posts will most likely jump around between what I was doing for the first few weeks as well as keeping you updated with the football games that are happening at the present moment. Let me know if you want to hear about something specific.

Das Trainingslager

The departure for training camp was a little bizarre for me since I was so new to this place and just getting adjusted to my surroundings in Monchengladbach. I knew that on a daily basis I would be back at the Hockeypark but other than that didn’t really know where I was going to be. I had no idea where this hostel was and what direction we were heading. Realistically that’s not a big deal but generally these are things I am used to knowing; at least having an idea where I was going to be so I had to completely let go of control and go along for the ride.

The hostel was located in area not far from Monchengladbach called Bruggen. Here is a link to the hostel so you can check it out; unfortunately I forgot to take many pictures but I did manage one picture of my room.




The next four days were spent completely immersed in football.

Every day we would wake-up at 7am for a team stretch outside, go inside for a special teams meeting, get maybe 30 minutes of extra time to do whatever (sleep usually), then breakfast and then another 45 minutes to relax (pre-practice power nap) and then board the bus for the 30 minute ride to the Hockeypark. Once at the field, we had a two-hour practice and then time for a shower and boarded the bus to go back to the hostel for lunch. After lunch we had unit meetings and time for a nap or physiotherapy for about an hour or so. We would then board the bus again and return to the field for our second practice of the day. After practice, we travelled back to the hostel and ate dinner followed by meetings and practice film analysis. We were in meetings until about 10:30pm. At this point, you had time for more physiotherapy, hanging out or what most of the guys did… back to bed before the cycle started over again.

This was our schedule for three days and then on the final night, we had a team barbecue, with steaks, salads and beer. Yeah that’s right beer! This was a surprise to me as well since I would have expected the barbecue to be after the offense versus defense team scrimmage the following day. This is not to say that the team got really drunk but it was just a casual beer or two but this was something new I had never experienced during a training camp. I had a coach back in Canada that once told the team I was playing on that “one or two beers are ok, but after that you are abusing your temple!” I guess they take that statement seriously in Germany. It was a new experience to have a beer during training camp and it may have been one of the best tasting beers I had in a long time; may have had something to do with the context. The last day of camp we were allowed to sleep for a couple extra hours and then we cleared out of the hostel and headed to the field to have our scrimmage; the culmination of training camp.